Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Drain the Mediterranean

A few days ago, when I heard about Newt Gingrich’s plan/idea/hallucination to make the Moon the 51st State, I wondered what else he has in mind for the country we all love. (I mean America. And, for liberal Democrats, North Korea. Or at least that’s what Newt would say.)

Newt conducted a whirlwind campaign tour around my State of Florida this week. (Better late than never. No, actually, better never.) At the Space Coast, Newt explained what he wants NASA to do. I started to think through what other great plans/ideas/hallucinations that Newt might have in mind for the rest of us. A sort of a Contract With The Universe. Based on Newt’s lunar lunacy, here is what I think that we may see from Newt Gingrich, 45th President of the United States:

(1)Gingrich will direct the Army Corps of Engineers to drain the Mediterranean Sea. Gingrich will then lay claim to all of the land underneath it. And then he will put the screws to Crete. (Warning to Newt: this may hurt you with your key Tea Party constituent group, the Cretins.)

(2)Gingrich will create jobs in the construction industry by getting bids on a project to make the Washington Monument three times as large, and kind of smoother. Then he will rename it the “Washington Monument to Newt’s Greatness.”

(3)In order to qualify for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Gingrich will make infants change their own diapers. You know, to show them the value of work.

(4)Gingrich will order the Pentagon’s DARPA weapons lab to erect a giant 10-gigawatt humidifier, and a giant 10-gigawatt dehumidifier. Turn them loose on each other. Let’s settle this, once and for all. (By the way, Steven Wright thought of this first.)

(5)Gingrich will command the Department of Energy to dig a hole deep down into the Earth’s crust, and fill it with soufflé. Think of how proud we will all feel, watch the world’s first geothermal soufflé rise. And rise. And rise.

(6)Gingrich will have the U.S. Postal Service deliver the mail by drone airplane. Just bomb the mailboxes. First with the mail, and then . . . .

(7)Gingrich will instruct NOAA to conduct a valid scientific test to see whether prayer can change the direction of hurricanes as they approach the shore. A double-blind test, so the hurricane doesn’t know.

(8)Gingrich will mandate that the National Institutes of Health develop a neurological examination to determine whether Newt Gingrich really is more intelligent than every other human being combined.

(9)Gingrich will compel all the tree-hugging liberals who work at the National Endowment for the Arts to translate the internet into Klingon. Including the porn. No, especially the porn.

(10)Gingrich will proclaim a Constitutional Amendment mandating that Newt Gingrich (a/k/a the “Great Leader”) be President of the Earth-Moon Alliance for life, and twenty years beyond that. Just work out the details.

You think I’m kidding. Well, don’t cling to that conclusion. Here are some actual things that Newt really said, and I’m not making any of them up:

“I have enormous personal ambition. I want to shift the entire planet. And I’m doing it. I am now a famous person. I represent real power.”

“Gingrich - Primary mission, Advocate of civilization, Definer of civilization, Teacher of the rules of civilization, Leader of the civilizing forces.”

Gingrich on Gingrich: “The most serious, systematic revolutionary of modern times.”

Newt Gingrich decides who lives and dies. When a reporter asked Gingrich what to do about the homeless a few days after the police shot a homeless man in front of the White House, Gingrich said: “Give the park police more ammo.”

And Newt Gingrich determines what is true and false. As he said a few weeks ago: “Any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood.”

Why is such an obvious megalomaniac considered to be a serious candidate for President? I don’t know. You would have to ask the Tea Party that question.

As for me, I have rather more modest ambitions than Newt does. I would like to try to help the 24 million Americans who can’t find full-time work. The 50 million Americans who can’t see a doctor when they are sick. The 47 million Americans who need government assistance to feed themselves. And the 40 million Americans who live in homes where the mortgage is more than the value of the home.